The first pair of Nikes I ever wore belonged to my mother: red and white Cortez. She bought them at a yard sale for a quarter or fifty cents or something like that. We were fairly broke, so to me, Nikes were only for the cool kids. And now we had some in the house. And I wore them even though they were too big for me.

Because I wanted to be cool.

Now I am, officially, a real runner. After starting off not being able to jog to the end of my block, then progressing to the stop sign… And my first ever 5k run. My husband drove the minivan beside me down a dark and buggy farm road, kids snoozing in their car seats, music from the dash scaring cows from the rusty barbed wire fences. That was 9 years ago and I still feel victorious when I think about that run.

It is impossible for me to think about running races and not think about the Marine Corps Marathon. Impossible. I have tried three times; the last time with a friend to pace me starting at mile 12. The wheels have fallen off 3 times. I have failed 3 times.

I’m terrible at math, but even I can see that my glass is most certainly half full. Full to the top. Running over.

My cup runneth over.
(Snort snort…puns…gotta live ‘em.)

The Bataan Memorial Death March 26.2 will forever make me proud. I cried. I bled. I stumbled. I finished. And I think I’d take that one finish over all the others if I had to.

…so, no; I am not a failure. I have not failed. I have not finished 5 races. 5 Out of…guessing…at least 40 events. That’s pretty good.

On this National Running Day there will be those who brag about mileages and events and podium finishes and I will join them. I will remind myself that I get to join in on the Facebook festivities and the running shoe shop games because, quite simply, I rate a seat at this party, too. Those first painful and humbling miles, the next ten thousands of miles less painful but still more humbling, the tears on the sag wagons, the high-fiveing dozens of water-station volunteers, the 0300 wake ups, and the cheers at the finish lines rate my ticket.

Coach Jeff at Team PRSFit has helped me in ways he will probably never understand, but along with the workouts and nutrition consultations, he gave me the best advice I’ve ever been given: “no more bull crap. cut the bull crap.”Feeling like a failure all the time is bull crap. So I don’t do that anymore.

My coach has prostate cancer and is working with Zero to put an end to the stigma, the stubbornness, and the disease. He’s running across the whole country, the whole fricking country , with prostate cancer, raising money and awareness along the way. You can donate to the cause here.Coach Jeff and Zero put together a team for MCM. I’m helping. I’m training. I’m running.

Like this:

One of our sugar gliders died today. I don’t know what happened, he was healthy, well-fed, etc. His name was Romeo.

The kids took Romeo’s passing pretty hard, especially the 9 year old. He kept asking me if I was sure the critter was dead. “Yes,” I assured him, “he is definitely dead.” I didn’t go into details, but when I had to collect his tiny body from the cage, Romeo was most assuredly corpsified.

Also, the nine year old was particularly annoyed that the critter was being buried in a cereal box. (No shoe boxes…) He vows to never eat Kashi again.

The 5 year old asked if we could have an autopsy. Actually, his exact words were, “Maybe we better cut his belly and see what badness he ate. Plus we can make sure he won’t be a zombie.”

The kids decided there would be a funeral. They also invited their friends.

The 9 year old read from the book of Jeremiah and took the responsibility of shoveling the dirt.

Over the cereal box. The cereal box of doom, as the 5 year old called it.

Maggie attended the service, too.

So poor Juliet is alone. While she misses Romeo, she did confide that she thought he was a bit smelly and crude, always demanding Benny Hill reruns. She says she’ll date just as soon as the requisite mourning period is over. Happily, Romeo left her in fairly sweet digs and in possession of a stockpile of food pellets.

Like this:

First, an announcement: the Idiot Quilts are almost done! The first was mailed a couple of days ago, the next will be mailed on Monday, then again on Friday. :) The quilt for Coach’s online fund raiser is 50% complete. Yay! for being productive. (We won’t talk about the tardiness…)

Ever since our trip to Europe last summer and our trip to Disney World the previous October, the kids have been begging for trips. We explained to them that trips cost lots (lots!) of money and we’d need to save lots (lots!) of money.

We’ve cut out iTunes movies and music, trips to the coffee store, dining out, ordering pizza, trips to the money pit Target, and school lunches. We stay home more often, saving gas money. I haven’t had my hair done in…um…yeah…I can’t remember.

My best friend’s family bought me a race entry for my birthday and I was surprised with a half marathon entry by my Hubs, but there will be no more races for the year. This is huge. In a given year, I will enter several races, each costing between $30-$110 each. This doesn’t include travel, hotel, food, and buying stuff at the expos. When I really added up all the races expenses for the past couple of years, I choked. While I know the kids had fun on my race weekends, I know that these were very selfish expenses on my part.

For several weeks now, my youngest has been bringing me stray change “for our next big trip to see Harry Potter”. My heart melts. Tiny little fist full of pennies…to travel the world. The oldest wants to see Paris (she’s enrolled in French language class), and has never complained about the lack of pizza. The middle kiddo wants to go back to London to ride in The Eye again and he’s never whined about missing a movie. It’s pretty cool that they see the world as accessible and they’re willing to give up their little luxuries.

We have bank accounts, of course, but the Chang€ o£ $cener¥ jar is something in the house, something they can focus on, and actively fill. (Online banking is great, but clicking around on a computer is never as satisfying as hearing the chink! of real money.)

How do you encourage your kids to save? What method works best for your family travel goals?

I cruise Pinterest like a pigeon trolling for popcorn. “pin ALL the projects I’ll never do!” and “save ALL the funny and relevant memes!”.

Except I couldn’t sleep tonight and I found this super-cute pin. And I gathered this stuff:

And murdered an innocent medicine cup. Because reasons.

Then I cut some scrap material into a shape vaguely resembling a roundish sort of a curvy circle-wanna-be, then stitched the world’s lamest running stitch.

I gathered the thread up a bit (it sort of resembled a Nelly Olson bonnet. I always hated Nelly Olson.) and stuffed it with some fluff I found on the floor. (Don’t judge. I have fluff on the floor.) …pulled the thread tight, made a little noose (kind of sad, really) and made this:

It was at this point that I realized that the murder of the medicine cup was unnecessary. I expect Dexter to be here any minute.

Then I remembered that I have a thimble that I hate. Behold, the Hated Thimble of Doom::::.

I put some hot glue in the bottom, then crammed some
Little Scrappy Bits in there to add some height.

Then I added more hot glue and then crammed the little beheaded Nelly Olson down into the top.

I don’t have any ring-making supplies (thank Sauron for that!) but I have a whole pant-load of hair ties. I found one, conveniently, on my wrist because I always have a hair tie on my wrist. I secured it in double (grammar much? nope.) with thread. .

There are few things in life that terrify me more than Gorilla Glue. However, because I really wanted to make this project work and because I have the world’s pissiest little glue gun, I felt like being brave.

Gorilla Glue and fingers just don’t mix.

After drying and checking to be sure my fingers wouldn’t have to be melted off my hand because of the GG, I can proudly show you that I made this:

…and I think I’ll take up a collection so I can go get a manicure. Sheeeeesh…